Deaths Elsewhere

Deaths Elsewhere

February 24, 2004

Bart Howard, 88, a songwriter and pianist best known for his composition "Fly Me to the Moon," died of complications from a stroke Saturday in Carmel, N.Y.

Born in Burlington, Iowa, Mr. Howard moved to Los Angeles in 1934 with dreams of writing music for movies. He later relocated to New York, where singer Mabel Mercer added his song "If You Leave Paris" to her repertoire. From 1941 to 1945, he served as a musician in the Army.

"Fly Me to the Moon" - also known as "In Other Words" - first gained fame in 1960, when Peggy Lee sang it on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Don Cornell, 84, a big band singer who scored a string of hits during the 1950s and early 1960s including "It Isn't Fair," died yesterday in Aventura, Fla., of emphysema and diabetes.

His singing career spanned more than 40 years and more than 50 million records sold. Mr. Cornell was honored in 1963 as one of the first stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Big Band Hall of Fame in 1993.

He continued to perform into his 80s.

Vijay Anand, 71, the director of several Hindi-language movies hailed as classics, died of a heart attack yesterday in Bombay.

Mr. Anand was best known for movies such as Guide, Black Market, Jewel Thief, The Third Story and Ram Balram. He joined the Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, following in the footsteps of his elder brothers, the late producer Chetan Anand and superstar actor Dev Anand.

Joe Viterelli, 66, a stocky actor whose pug face helped him land a series of roles as lovable mugs in mob flicks that included Analyze This and its sequel, died of complications from heart surgery Jan. 29 in Las Vegas.

A jack-of-all-trades before embarking on an acting career in his 50s, Mr. Viterelli said in interviews that he once operated a string of music schools started by his family in Queens. He later ran bars, drove a truck and had a job drilling bowling-ball holes, he said.

A New York City native, Mr. Viterelli moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. He became friends with director Leo Penn, who thought Mr. Viterelli's tough-guy features would play well in movies and television, but declined roles until a call from his friend's son, actor Sean Penn, led to a role in the 1990 gangster tale State of Grace.